french food

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The original Ferdi is located in Paris and has become a favourite of models and other celebrities and they have decided to expand and after 13 years open another branch – this time in London. One of the waiters who before relocating to London worked in Paris, was telling me that they also have plans to open another Ferdi in Dubai and maybe one in New York, but there will only be 1 Ferdi per country.

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The Don is one of those “old” city lunch restaurants that has been around for years and has got a loyal clientele (I think mainly the older generation that started going to Don when no other restaurants in the city were available). The Don is located close to Bank station and there is a more casual brasserie and a more formal restaurant next to it, located in a courtyard, so more secluded. We went to the more formal restaurant for lunch.

The décor in the restaurants is quite nice, there are colourful paintings (including seven original Hoyland paintings), blue long, quite comfortable chairs, white tablecloths, a standard city lunch setting. The food is modern French/ British and starters are £10 on average and main courses a bit more than £20, so standard for the city.

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Ratatui is a bit of a strange restaurant in the sense that it is very good with a French chef Jean-Mark Bordenave but is located in Bergi, a small little village on the outskirts of Riga, almost in the middle of the forest. Usually these sort of goof restaurants open in the centre of Riga not in Bergi, but needless to say this is now the best restaurant in Bergi and the neighbouring area.

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Helene Darroze at the Connaught is a 2 Michelin star French restaurant in the Connaught Hotel, one of the most luxurious and beautiful hotels in Mayfair. It is located on one side of the hotel and serves lunch and dinner in a relaxed yet sophisticated French environment. This review however is about their very famous brunch – one of the most luxurious brunches in London.

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Le Murmure is a café in the 15th district of Paris that turns into a bar in the evenings. You can come here for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I came here for dinner and the place was busy and I heard both English and French being spoken here. People were enjoying themselves, drinking wine and eating typical French brasserie food that Le Murmure (meaning a whisper in English) offers.

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The Waterside Inn is one of 4 restaurants in the UK that has 3 Michelin stars and the only restaurant in the UK to have retained 3 stars for over 25 years. The Waterside Inn gained its first Michelin star 2 years after it first opened in 1974 when the guide originally came out, the second one in 1977, and the third one in 1985. The Waterside Inn is located in Bray, 16th century village, about 1h drive from central London, in close proximity (5 min walk) to another 3 Michelin star restaurant – The Fat Duck. The Waterside Inn, as the name suggests, is a restaurant next to the Thames river. We came here for lunch and so we could perfectly see the nice countryside and the river with a very quick current. When you come here for dinner, you don’t really see the outside so well. The Waterside Inn has been run by the famous chef Roux Family for years and nowadays it is run by Alain Roux.

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I have heard people say that Mio is the most romantic restaurant in Riga, Latvia. I can see why you would say that, as inside of the restaurant is decorated with lace, flowers, cute cushions and in pastel colours. When I was there however this sort of décor mainly attracted women, and my dinner buddy Petersons ended up being the only man in the whole restaurant. But they have put in a lot of effort into the décor, much more than an average Latvian restaurant and it feels homely, cosy and beautiful at the same time. The tables are however very close together, as the dining space is so small, and you may feel squeezed in. Also the open kitchen on one side of the room seems very small, and I was amazed how they could produce all the food there.

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I was very skeptical about Racine. I thought it would be one of those average French restaurants that is expensive, serves everything in foam and at the end of the day does not give you very interesting or tasty food, but I was wrong.

Racine is located in between Knightsbridge and South Kensington, a short walk away from Harrods. It looks like a very old restaurant, not because of old décor, but because of the manner the waiters serve you and greet you. Racine opened in 2002 and the chef patron is Henry Harris. The main thing that I liked about Racine is that it served un-pretentious and good food, a bit like brasserie food, but better. And even though the décor and the service were good, it felt quite casual in a good way.

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Restaurant Andre is one of the best restaurants in the world (it has been in the St Pellegrino awards top 50 restaurants in the world list for a few years, now at number 37) and is also recognised by St Pellegrino awards as the best restaurant in Singapore. I was going to Singapore on a mini holiday and I naturally wanted tocome here and try their food. Getting a reservation was not easy. I tried to get in touch with Restaurant Andre a month before we were there and it was already full and I could not get a table for lunch or dinner. Luckily my friend Mark helped out and used his connections and got me a table for lunch on the 9th May.

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Sauterelle is a French restaurant, owned by the D&D group (who own many restaurants in London – Plateau, Fish Market, Avenue, Coq d’Argent, Patternoster Chop House and many others) on the mezzanine level of the Royal Exchange. The Royal Exchange is an impressive building by the bank tube station next to Bank of England and inside there are a few cafes and restaurants and the most upmarket dining can be found in Sauterelle. The only disadvantage of having the restaurant where it is though is that they don’t have their own toilet and for a toilet you need to go outside throughout the royal exchange building. The restaurant seems very quiet and secluded from the buzz of the royal exchange main café and all the other restaurants. The main chef at Sauterelle is Arnaud Delannay, who joined in May 2012 and who comes from south of France which has influenced his cooking and he brings a classic Provençale style to Sauterelle.

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A Latvian girl who works in finance but has a deep passion for food! She lives to eat! :)

The website aims to share her thoughts on many of the meals she has had around the world and all the places she has visited, from michellin ranked and best restaurants in the world to casual, cool and quite cheap places.

Ratings

Maija assigns restaurants rating ranging from m (very bad) to MMMMM (very good) so the more "M"s a restaurants gets the better. Small "m"s mean half points. Note Maija gives a high rating based on the overall experience in the restaurant and also based on how delicious and enjoyable the meal was and not based on the quality or price of ingredients.